Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401220022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Rev. Vernon Johns, who also grew up in Virginia, encouraged black people to take a stand against the injustices they were suffering. However, few people appreciated the fiery speaker then.
But now, the story of the early civil rights activist has come to television. ``The Vernon Johns Story,'' which aired on Chicago station WGN on Monday night, will be repeated this eveningjan.23 at 5.
William Johns and his wife, Dolores, are delighted with the movie and honored that esteemed actor James Earl Jones was chosen to portray their second cousin.
William Johns said the actor looks more like his father, William L. Johns Sr., than Vernon Johns, but the ``double cousins'' as they were called - because their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers - were similar in temperament. Jones did well with their mannerisms.
``It's amazing the resemblance,'' Johns said. ``He [Jones] moved around the same and wore the same kind of clothes.''
The film opens in 1948 with Vernon Johns arriving in Montgomery, Ala., to take the pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. His civil rights positions were so strong that many congregations rejected him, including one later in Lynchburg, Va. But Johns opened the way for Martin Luther King Jr., who also later preached at Dexter.
``I learned a lot [from the film] because I'd heard my husband talk about Vernon through the years,'' said Dolores Johns. ``I was real thrilled to see the movie. It is an eye-opener, especially for the young people.''
William Johns Jr., 64, remembers as a child visiting Vernon Johns' home near Farmville. ``It's been so many years ago I forget what we did,'' he said. ``We'd go down in the summer. He had a little country store he ran there. We'd go in there and he had country hams and watermelons.''
A scene in the film shows Vernon Johns selling fruit and vegetables from his garden. Though some members of his congregation disapproved, he was making the point that blacks should become self-sufficient instead of relying on white businesses.
The movie's portrayal ``was typical of Vernon Johns,'' William Johns Jr. said.
``Vernon was our speaker at our family reunion every year`` in Appomattox. ``He told it just like it was. ... He was alerting people to be aware of what was going on.''
William Johns Jr. grew up with his family in Bedford County. His father was president of the county's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He, too, had his share of enemies. Once someone shot at William Johns Sr.`s home, leaving bullet marks that remain there today.
William Johns Jr., who has worked with General Medical Corp. for 36 years, moved to Roanoke in 1956. Back then, everything still was segregated, and he remembers stand-up counters for blacks and sit-down counters for whites at Woolworth's on Campbell Avenue.
``It was rougher on the average black person going backward and forward to work. Most were still going to the back of the bus [after desegregation laws were passed] because they couldn't get used to the idea of change, and I guess that's where Martin Luther King really came in, preaching about the idea of change.``
He added that middle-class blacks were not ready for what Vernon Johns had to say because of fear.
``Nobody had seen anything like that before,'' he said. ``People were really afraid. They didn't want to lose their job, or their home or their automobile.
``Poor people didn't have anything to lose except their lives.''
Dolores Johns said Vernon Johns was pastor of a church in Lynchburg some time after he left Alabama.
``They asked him to leave from there because of the same way he preached,'' she said. ``They didn't really appreciate him.''
The Johns family is collecting information about Vernon Johns and the entire clan for a family tree to present at a reunion in July.
by CNB